“As homelessness overwhelms downtown Phoenix, a small business wonders how long it can hang on.”
America
Posted inNonfiction
Best of 2022: Reader Favorites
You’ve heard from the Longreads’ editors, now it’s the turn of our readers.
Posted inEditor's Pick
When a Full-time Job Isn’t Enough
“Those days of working one job and sustaining a household on one income — those days are long gone.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Noncompliant Heart
“Why was I chosen to lead the Pledge of Allegiance? My heart demands an answer to this question.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Humiliating History of the TSA
“I don’t really recognize the America that exists at a TSA checkpoint. It is overly paranoid, vindictive, and unaccountable to us as citizens.” Since 9/11, there isn’t really evidence that shows the Transportation Security Administration has made air travel any safer for passengers. For The Verge, Darryl Campbell dives into two decades of unnecessary security check […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Slave Money Paved the Streets. Now This Posh RI City Strives to Teach Its Past.
Between 1700-1850, the city of Newport in tiny Rhode Island launched more slave trading voyages than anywhere in North America. And in a time when conservative school boards and state leaders around the U.S. are banning lessons about race and racism in schools, Newport is confronting its past: teaching students local Black history, African heritage, […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
A Year of “Protecting Children” in Texas
In the days after the Uvalde school shooting, Christopher Hooks looks at how the government has failed the children of Texas, focusing on banning books and demonizing transgender kids rather than working on ways to keep children safe. How can anyone be expected to live this way, let alone a fifth grader? We should remember […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Death Spiral of an American Family
In this heartbreaking portrait of one American family, Eli Saslow offers a look at “backwards mobility” and the country’s collapsing middle class. It had been almost a month since Dave, 39, found his father lying unresponsive in bed next to his cellphone and a bill from a collections agency, having died of a heart attack […]